• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.89-112
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• 2005

This study investigated the effects of collocation-based vocabulary instruction for the experimental group (G2). It was compared to the traditional wordlist-based vocabulary instruction for the control group (G1). This results reflect the development of low level high school EFL learners' vocabulary learning strategy use and the positive change in the affective domain. In the analysis of the survey responses, G1 and G2 did not differ significantly on the first questionnaire. They did, however, differ significantly on the second questionnaire. G2 used more strategies to discover and to consolidate the meaning of the words by means of combining words. In terms of the affective domain, G2 participated more actively in the learning activities, which had a significant effect on vocabulary growth, memory, self-confidence, motivation, and cooperative learning. This is attributable to the fact that G2 was more inquisitive, interested, challenged, participatory, cooperative, and attentive than G1 in performing the vocabulary task activities. Moreover, the data collected from the questionnaire showed that G2 performed more interactive and dynamic activities in solving the given tasks.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.71-87
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• 2005

The role of interaction in second language (L2) classrooms has been examined from different angles, ranging from early studies of foreigner talk to the studies of the teacher- and task-based talk. However, most of the research on L2 classroom interaction has been based on a traditional psycholinguistic view of language and learning, failing to reconceptualize a broad and holistic understanding of L2 learning. Currently, many researchers have attempted to explore and describe classroom interaction in L2 classrooms from a sociocultural perspective. The purpose of this paper is to discuss Vygotsky's theoretical framework in terms of L2 classroom interaction and research from a sociocultural perspective, by describing three key concepts (zone of proximal development, private speech, and activity theory) in Vygotsky's theoretical framework and relating them to L2 classroom interaction. The results demonstrated the importance of social interaction for second language acquisition with the review of the related research study. It was also suggested that the dynamic and interactive processes of second language learning in the classroom should be valued by L2 researchers as well as L2 teachers. Finally, implications for the concepts for L2 classroom research and pedagogy are presented in the conclusion.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.25-38
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• 2005

Postmodern American science fiction authors often dramatize the human fear and hope for the newly emerging artificial life forms. For example, Helen as an advanced artificial intelligence Richard Power's Galatea 2.2 shows that the student's memorizing efforts for exams can be useless someday. In Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash machines are liable to be infected with viruses like human bodies. In He, She and It, Piercy's parallel of an artificial human (Yod) and a mythic personification (Golem) allegorically reveals the pandora-like unpredictable effect of advanced technology. More than the mechanical entities (the diffusion and linear models for Latour), these biologically artificial entities reveal the limitations of even the fantastically idealized technology simply because the human being as the creators or impersonators of these machines are not perfect. Compared to illustrative mechanism, biologically artificial entities (Latour's transition or whirlwind models) are inherently rebellious because of their closeness to the creators. The Butler's organic environmental interaction of the Earthseed convincingly demonstrates how the wrong use of science ruins the holy earth and also how human beings survive through the right use of effective science with the aid of anthroposophy.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.133-152
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• 2010

There is disagreement, among researchers, on the benefits of corrective feedback on L2 learners' written output. Some scholars advocate the usefulness of corrective feedback while some claim that error correction is ineffective and even harmful. So far, however, research outcomes cannot settle this debate. Based on this debate, this study examines whether there is a difference among diverse types of feedback on the effects of L2 learners' writing improvement. This study found that teacher's direct feedback was more effective than any other types of feedback on the effect of participants' writing improvement. In particular, teacher's direct feedback helped their improvement on grammar, mechanics, and form. Among the types of peer feedback, self-correction was the most effective. In teacher feedback, form-focused feedback had more effects than content-focused feedback, but no difference with regard to peer feedback. In addition, teacher's content-focused feedback was more effective than peer's content-focused feedback. Overall, in all types of feedback, teacher feedback was more effective than peer feedback. However, direct (form-focused) feedback was the most effective in teacher feedback, and self-correction in peer feedback. The least effective feedback in both teacher and peer feedback was indirect (form-focused) feedback, which is simple underlining of errors.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.185-200
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• 2010

Nathaniel Hawthorne seems to realize the reader's role in bringing his creation of fiction to completion. Almost all of Hawthorne's prefaces may be considered in terms of their contribution to the writer's narrative strategy. When he refers to the audience in the prefatory essay, "The Custom-House" and other prefaces to his major works as "the Reader," Hawthorne is establishing a mutual complicity that will continue throughout the following narratives. According to this rhetorical alliance, the writer's obligation is to get the story into the reader's imagination by any means possible, while the reader's share is to believe the story as much as possible while it is being told. The ultimate issue is thus not whether any event actually happened as Hawthorne reports it but whether readers are willing to grant the event credence while they are reading. Hawthorne's relationship with his audience is not congenial. In his prefaces, Hawthorne sometimes reveals a narrator who evades a fixed identity. The introduction of an unreliable narrator helps illuminate the unresolved, elusive ambiguity in Hawthorne's stories. Hawthorne seeks to make his narrative ambiguous frequently utilizing the very same indeterminacy so often cherished by poststructuralists. No critical term may be more firmly associated with the works of Hawthorne than ambiguity. Looking for new readers with more fresh eyes, Hawthorne's narratives always remain open to reinterpretation. After all, Hawthorne's prefaces (sometimes including unreliable narrators) help him become one of the most frustrating and fascinating novelists.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.333-351
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• 2009

R.W.B. Lewis called Greene's three novels - Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter - Greene's 'trilogy'. Greene was paid full attention by many readers and many critics after publishing these Catholic novels. The themes and plots of his Catholic novels are unique and beyond those of traditional Catholicism. Greene is always willing to stand on the edge of reality. He always conflicts with the reality and eagerly searches for a higher, more spiritual dimension. If we view Greene's protagonists from an open-minded viewpoint, Pinkie of Brighton Rock will be saved at the mercy and grace of God in spite of being evil. Whiskey Priest of The Power and the Glory is worthy of being called a saint in spite of his drunkenness and adultery. Scobie of The Heart of the Matter will be within God's grace in spite of his suicide. The reason all protagonists are saint-like is clear and simple because they all have faith and sacrifice themselves to obey God's first commandment, to love others. To summarize the theme of Greene's 'trilogy', we can say that love is the most valuable in the world. God has mercy for all human beings. The protagonists love God and they love others. In fact, Greene's faith is found in his love of human beings and God.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.223-238
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• 2010

This article analyzes and discusses M.M. Bakhtin's dialogics with the perspectives of what it emphasizes and how it makes the Russian Formalism and the Marxist literary theory together in his dialogics. This article considers conversion in the literary texts the central idea of dialogics, and it takes place through satire and parody. As Bakhtin stresses in his works, this article also examines the novel as the dominant genre in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Such satire and parody shows the ambivalence of the Russian Formalism and the Marxist literary theory. Bakhtin states that novel per se is very conversing. It has turned over the position that has been occupied by epics (poetry) and play for thousands years, and taken it over in the nineteenth century. Thus, novel is a literary genre in which a variety of conversing struggles occur throughout the texts, which makes it different from epics and play. Throughout such analyses and discussions, this paper considers Bakhtin's dialogics a complex of semantic, pragmatic, and semiotic elements.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.315-332
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize how Parks recalling, deconstructing and reconstructing African-American memories of the absences in American history through a black Lincoln impersonator named, The Foundling Father or The Lesser Known. Parks unearths and reconstitutes a significance for the historical event of Lincoln's assassination by repetitive mimicry and verbal puns. As a pun of the Founding Father, the Foundling Father reminds us of Abraham Lincoln, one of the most venerated figures in American history. In the first act, the black Foundling Father performs as The Great Man. This inverted minstrel show of the black Foundling Father performing a white Lincoln exposes the desire of the Foundling Father to insert his narrative within the history of America. With a series of assassinations, the African-American performers figuratively murder the power and control of the American myth. In the second act, his wife Lucy and his son Brazil dig relics from the past out of 'The great hole of history' instead of the Foundling Father. Digging and burial for African-Americans are their livelihood and their calling as well. As Parks pointed out, they should locate the ancestral buried ground, dig for bones and find bones because so much of African-American history has been unrecorded, dismembered and washed out. Parks leaves the possibilities of digging and burying on the black history through Lucy and Brazil.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.277-290
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• 2006

This study is to find out the meaning of the death in Donne's "Holy Sonnets" and divine poems. Death issue is the important theme and is used frequently in his poems. He expresses an assertion of faith about the defeat of death and wishes to gain new birth and eternal life through death. Ironically death must be died for rebirth and an inevitable death. Death is another way to get new life and return to Christ. Many readers think that "Hymn to God my god, in my sickness" is Donne's most distinguished achievement in his divine poems. The poem shows that death must be accepted willingly because it is only through death that man can reach heavenly bliss and gain new life. He develops an antithetic parallel between two hills and two trees. Paradise and Adam's tree which brought death into the world are related analogically to Calvary and the Cross, which brought resurrection and eternal life. Death and resurrection are shown to be conjoined in the poem. To sum up, Donne tried to pursuit death for rebirth and modeled after Christ's death and Resurrection.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.143-157
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• 2004

Sam Shepard is one of the leading American playwrights who represented Off-Off Broadway in the l960s and 1970s. In his early days, he wrote many experimental plays but later he turned to realism. However, under the superficial realism in his later plays, we find that they contain experimental devices and themes. True West (1980) is the last play of ills realistic family trilogy. This play shows that the tradition of Old West, which is symbolized and replaced by desert, disappeared in the industrialized clues of modern West. The Old West is compared which the modern West through the struggle of two brothers, Lee and Austin. Their father, 'Old Man', ran out on his family and went to the desert but did not succeed there. He shows that he failed in achieving the American Dream. The family appears unusual and demolished The relationships of the characters are not based on love and belief. The family symbolizes the negative aspects of modern American society. After Austin recognizes the actual situation finding that there is no real life in the modern West, he tries to leave the city and his family. He wants to go to the desert in search of a new life. However, in the last tableau Lee blocks the exit and the two brothers square off. It implies that they are doomed to continue their struggle. The message Implies that American society today is lacking the same positive values they once had in the Old West.